My Workshop at Reading Rocks

  October 16, 2017            No comments
I had a wonderful time on Saturday at The District CofE Primary School at the second Reading Rocks conference. I want to thank Heather and the staff for all their hard work organising a fantastic event. I was very lucky to be able to host a workshop all about ReadWritePerform. You can see my workshop and how the RWP approach works:



I was also very lucky to be interviewed as part of @RussellPrue's live radio broadcast. You can listen to the interview here:


It was nice to have the opportunity to sit and listen to other inspiring keynotes and drop into @SmithSmm's brilliant workshop. What was great how the messages from the keynotes and workshop I attended complimented the key messages from my workshop.

Combining PE and Maths with AR Runner and Graphmented

  October 12, 2017            No comments



One of the most exciting new features of Apple's iOS11 is the new ARKit and the possibilities with this new feature. The downside, as I discovered last week, the new AR apps will only work on devices with A9 or A10 chips. After installing these apps on most of our school devices, I quickly discovered they didn't work and had to change my plans quickly. 

My Year 6 digital leaders did, however, get to try these apps out on my iPad. First, they started with the app AR Runner.

The app used AR to create checkpoints which you run to as a way to complete different challenges. It is a great way to combine technology with PE as the children are timed when completing the challenges. Word of warning though, make sure you have decent cases on your iPads as no doubt there will be a few accidents when your pupils are into the game. 

The Year 6 pupils all had a few attempts of completing a challenge and collated their scores on a Google Sheet. 

Using another Augmented Reality app - Graphmented, the children then displayed the results of their challenge by presenting the data in Augmented Reality. The children then recorded an explanation of the results and worked out the average time it took the group to complete the challenge. 

Both apps have great potential to enhance learning in PE, maths and science, whether the majority of schools will be able to access these apps with the devices they have in school will be difficulty.





Learning About The Human Body In Year 1

  October 12, 2017            No comments
Year 1 are learning all about the human body. Today, we used technology to enhance this topic further. First, we used the brillaint Virtuali-tee app from Curiscope. Click here to read more about this app. To order a t-shirt, click here.

A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on


Once we had explored and discussed the different parts of our body, the children all took turns wearing a green t-shirt and used the camera to photograph each other. They pupils then used Doink Greenscreen to create a picture that looked like we could see inside their body.


Once the pupils had uploaded their pictures to Seesaw, we used the explain and reflect tool in Seesaw to label the major organs. 





Finally, with the help of our Digital Leaders, some children were able to record a video explaining how some of our organs work, see the video here:


The children loved using the technology to provide the WOW through the use of Augmented Reality but then using different creative tools to share their knowledge and understanding. 

A Class Read for ReadWritePerform's Picture Postcard Pack

  October 01, 2017            No comments
The latest ReadWritePerform pack - Wish You Were Here: The Picture Postcard Pack - is now available to download.

This Unit of Work is aimed specifically at Key Stage 1 but can be adapted for lower Key Stage 2. Through reading, deconstructing and then writing a postcard of a recent holiday, children will then perform their postcard as a greenscreen video and link it through Augmented Reality to create an interactive video postcard. Each app has a step-by-step guide for teachers who may feel less confident using the technology.

The aim is to cover all elements of the English curriculum in an engaging and purposeful way using a variety of media.

Here is a snippet of the final piece of work your pupils will create through using the pack:


Within the pack, we recommend some books that complement the pack really well. We recommend you using these as your class read as there are many links between the pack and the books.



Meerkat Mail - Meerkat Mail is a brilliant picture book from Emily Gravett, the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal. It has wonderfully detailed, witty artwork and a giant, glossy postcard flap to lift on every spread. Perfect for meerkat fans! 

This one we would really recommend as the story is told through postcards. 



Dear Dinosaur - After a trip to the museum, Max writes a letter to his favourite dinosaur, the mighty T. Rex - and the T. Rex writes back! As Max and T. Rex learn about each other's lives, a very unusual friendship develops in this funny and touching story from an award-winning duo. Dinosaur fans will love this interactive picture book with letters and cards to open, and dinosaur facts to discover along the way.



The Jolly Postman -  The Jolly Postman delivers cards and letters to various fairy-tale characters. He has a letter of apology for the three bears from Goldilocks, a postcard from Jack for the giant, a solicitor's letter on behalf of Little Red Riding-Hood for the wolf who ate grandma, and so on. There are six envelopes in the book, each containing letters, cards, postcards, etc.

Descriptosaurus - The Perfect Christmas Present For A Teacher

  October 01, 2017            No comments

About 3 years ago, my fantastic Deputy gave every teacher this book - Descriptosaurus. Written by Alison Wilcox, Descriptosaurus is fantastic for creative writing that is a thematic expansion of a dictionary and a thesaurus. It provides children with a comprehensive resource with which to expand their descriptive vocabulary, experiment with language and sentence structure and build up narratives based around the following areas: Settings - landscapes, settlements and atmosphere, Characters - appearance, emotions and personality, and Creatures - appearance, abilities and habitats.

When it comes to writing, teachers can find it tricky to generate effective descriptive language during shared or guided writing sessions. I have been lucky enough to attend training by Alan Peat and Pie Corbett. Both sessions were fantastic and made it look so easy to generate effective vocabulary to tell a good story. They are geniuses and experts in the field. When faced with a class of 30, being put on the spot, you can have a complete mental block. However, with the descriptosaurus to hand, you will always be able to find a word, phrase or whole sentence to use.

In 2013, the National Literacy Trust ran a descriptive writing competition linked with Descriptosaurus. Some resources are still available - click here. On the back of the competition, Alison has now created new versions of the Descriptosaurus based on different text types. The four are - Action and Adventure, Ghost Stories, Fantasy and Myths and Legends. At present, only Action and Adventure and Ghost Stories are available, with the others being released soon.

From the competition, this book helps areas of children's writing that needed development, such as action scenes. There is a bigger focus on the character's reactions and interactions. This is something I feel is often missing from children's writing.

The books are also available electronically through the Kindle store.








Here is a sample from the Amazon preview of the Descriptosaurus:




So if you are stuck for a present to buy a teacher or even treat your child to help with their writing, I would highly recommend these books!

A Class Read for ReadWritePerform's Crazy Creatures Pack

  October 01, 2017            No comments
Recently. we discovered this amazing book that would complement our recent teaching pack - Crazy Creatures.

This Unit of Work is aimed specifically at Key Stage 1 but can be adapted for lower Key Stage 2. Through reading, researching and then writing an information text about a chosen animal, children will create their own Crazy Creature Fact File. The aim is to cover all elements of the English curriculum in an engaging and purposeful way using a variety of media. It also aims to foster within children their love of the natural world and help them to understand their role and responsibility to it.



Sloth Slept On is a picture book all about a group of children who find a sloth snoring away in a tree in their garden. Not knowing what it is, they set out to find out. While the two older children dream up increasingly outrageous possibilities, from an astronaut to a pirate, to a space creature, the youngest little girl investigates books and a globe and discovers what it really is and where it lives. But how can the children help the sloth to get home if it won't wake up?

This would be appropriate for KS1.



 

5 Useful iOS 11 Updates for Teachers

  September 27, 2017            No comments
Recently, Apple released iOS 11 and with the update are some great new features. I have put this video together of some of my favourite new features which I think teachers will find really useful.




The downside with the new update is that there are now quite a few apps that will no longer work. @ICTEvangelist recently blogged about this and how to find out which ones are no longer compatible with iOS11. You can read it here. 

On my iPad there are 810!!! Now some of them I have downloaded and never used in the classroom. There are however a number that I regularly use and am gutted they will no longer work. Tellagami, Thinking Blocks, Epic Citadel and some of the AR apps I had, are the ones that stand out the most. Luckily with iOS11 the ARKit will bring some impressive new apps into the classroom.

Fingers crossed, most of the developers will be able to update the apps in the near future. Here is the list of apps on my iPad that will no longer work:










Retelling Stories with Shadow Puppets Edu

  September 23, 2017            No comments
For the past couple of weeks, I have been working with Year 2. Their topic is "Something old, something new." This has been linked to the story - Granny's Quilt by Penny Ives.

Last week, the students used the app Shadow Puppets Edu to record their thoughts on pictures of things from my youth which has now been replaced with modern technology. You can watch their efforts here.

This week we used the same app for a different task. Now the children had read the story a few times in class, I challenged them to create a video retelling the story in their own words.

The reason why Shadow Puppets Edu has become one of my go-to apps for KS1 is how versatile it is and how simple it is for pupils to use. Once they had selected a number of images from the book, they recorded themselves explaining that part of the story and then repeated the process for each image and then saved the finished video to their Seesaw portfolios.

Here are a couple of their examples:



10 More Medieval Pictures That Capture Life as a Teacher

  September 23, 2017            No comments
So a couple of weeks ago, I shared some medieval pictures from my Instagram account (@ICT_MrP) that depicted life as a teacher. You can read this blog post here. 

Here are 10 more:

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A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on

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A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on
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Make sure you follow on Mr P on:








Something Old, Something New in Year 2

  September 14, 2017            No comments
Today I worked with Year 2. Their new topic is "Something Old, Something New." I decided to challenge the pupils to record videos explaining some objects from my youth which have since become obsolete due to more developed technology.

It was inspired after I saw this video online:



After providing pictures of a variety of objects:


The children used the app Shadow Puppets Edu to create short videos explaining what they thought these objects were and what they were used for. I have to admit I had a laugh at some of their innocent suggestions, which cheered me up after I realised how old I am! 

Once we completed the first video, we spent time talking about the objects and what they actually did and how modern technology has replaced many of them. The children then created another video giving an explanation of what they had learnt about each object. 

Using the app Shadow Puppets gave every child the opportunity to express their predictions and ideas and new found understanding. It allowed the children to practise their oracy skills and continue to develop key digital literacy skills by recording, editing and then uploading their final efforts to Seesaw. 

This video has some of my favourite little clips:

10 Medieval Pictures That Capture Life as a Teacher

  September 11, 2017            No comments
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A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on


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A post shared by Lee Parkinson (@ict_mrp) on


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Make sure you follow on Mr P on:









A Battle in Britain: A Historical Explanation Pack

  September 02, 2017            No comments
I am so excited to announce that the latest Read Write Perform pack is now available. We hoped it would have been available a little bit earlier, so we can only apologise for this. We have been inundated with questions as so many people have been waiting for this one.

Hopefully, it will be worth the wait.


The year is 1066. William, Duke of Normandy, is livid: he thinks he should be king over Harold. He sets sail from neighbouring France with a great army - not just a thumbs up ‘great army’ but a ‘wow, that’s a rather large and intimidating ‘great army’.

The Battle of Hastings, The War of the Roses,  the Roman invasion, these are just a few of the significant events which have shaped Great Britain. Let your pupils retell these events in the form of a humorous report, just like Bob Hale from Horrible Histories. 

A Unit of Work aimed at Key Stage 2 & 3. Through reading, researching and then writing an explanation text about a significant historical event, children create their own humorous historical report. 

The aim is to cover all elements of the English curriculum in an engaging and purposeful way using a variety of media.  

With an additional focus on  Fluency for Meaning, this pack will help your learners appreciate the role of the narrator more fully. It will support them as they gain a better understanding of the narrator's role when reading aloud and help them to reflect upon how their voice can be used effectively, not simply to convey what is happening but also to bring the text to life. 

The pack also contains contextualised SPaG sessions that focus on shifts in formality and the impact this has on the audience. 

This pack includes:
  • Comprehension lessons that integrate and develop core reading skills at Word, Sentence and Text Level.
  • Writing lessons that encourage collaborative learning and independent creative writing that embeds grammar in a meaningful way and helps learners understand what it means to be a real writer, one who writes for an authentic purpose and with a particular audience in mind.
  • Performance lessons that develop reading fluency and a deeper understanding of their own work and that of others, as well as help improve personal social skills and confidence.

By the end of each Unit of Work, teachers will have written and video evidence of each of their students' work. This work can be shared with a wider audience, be assessed for moderation and will inform your future planning.

CLICK HERE TO BUY A COPY NOW

Here is a video explaining how Read Write Perform works:



CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OF THE READ WRITE PERFORM TEACHING PACKS

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